Why Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce chose Melbourne’s inner north to book a fundraising soiree for their burgeoning fascist enterprise is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they thought Moonee Ponds was nothing but Dame Edna Everages and white suburban traditionalism. Perhaps they didn’t understand just how close it was to the city’s left-wing heartlands.
Whatever the reason, it didn’t work out for One Nation—at least not in this part of town. Earlier in the day, Giorgio Casa, an Italian restaurant that had agreed to host the group’s cocktail party, cancelled Hanson’s booking. Police told the Age newspaper that no threats had been made against the premises. Perhaps the looming anti-racist protest was drawing too much negative attention to the venue. Perhaps there was a broader community backlash against the restaurant for accommodating far-right anti-migrant filth.
At any rate, the tussle was on as soon as Hanson announced her event. From that moment, socialists and anti-fascist activists went into organisational overdrive, calling a protest, putting up posters advertising it, holding information stalls and making phone calls. They did all the bread-and-butter things that activists do.
With their venue gone, Hanson and Joyce headed south of the river to a more accommodating host—some place that would shelter the two millionaires and their new wealthy backers from the hustle and bustle of street-based political criticism.
Despite One Nation’s eventual absence, up to 1,000 people joined the anti-Hanson protest in the centre of Moonee Ponds. There were speeches from Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi and Victorian Socialists state election candidates Omar Hassan and Anneke Demanuele. There was a march from the central junction to Giorgio Casa and back. The usual left-wing chants echoed along Mt Alexander Road. Passing cars honked in support. Locals joined the march.
Marching along Mt Alexander Road
It was a good night. And it felt like a genuine win. Not a win that will stop the far-right juggernaut. Not a win from which a counter-power to fascism will emerge. But a win nevertheless. We didn’t change the world. We didn’t alter history. And we’re staring down the barrel of bad times. But you take small victories. You take what you can get.
A long-time socialist organiser, Jerome Small, addressing the rally, talked about the last time we had to fight Hanson in Victoria, back in the 1990s. He, along with a couple of others in Moonee Ponds last night, had helped to organise some of those protests. A lot has changed since then. The far right and fascism are ascendant across much of the world now. And protests can no longer prevent One Nation from organising a base. Hanson has become the established expression of far-right politics in Australia. Indeed, her party could well form government with the Liberals in Victoria later this year.
But some things haven’t changed. People who have heard Jerome Small speak in various protests and forums over his decades of activism will know that he is fond of repeating what he calls rule number one: “you show up”. If you don’t show up, you can’t win a thing. If you do show up, who knows—you might just have a fighting chance. If nothing else, you’ve had a go.
In a sense, that’s the issue of One Nation today. It’s not that a quarter of the population say that they are going to vote for Hanson. It’s not even a question of how to defeat her and the far right more generally. Given the global balance of forces between the far left and the far right, we simply can’t beat them anytime soon.
The issue is how to build a political alternative; how to organise the masses of people disgusted by the reality of Hanson’s rise and all the racism, bigotry and pro-billionaire politics that come with her. The thing holding us back on that front is not the number of people who already agree that Hanson is odious; it’s the number prepared to show up—to protests, to meetings, to discussion groups, to doorknocks in the suburbs, and to electoral campaigns for socialist candidates who oppose the entire political establishment, of which Hanson and Joyce are a part.
In Moonee Ponds last night, nearly 1,000 people showed up. That’s what made it a good little win. But there’s much more to do if we are to turn all the left-wing, anti-racist disaffection into something politically organised.
